Massively on the Go: Pokemon GO’s January dough

By
Andrew Ross
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Pokemon Go’s Dual Destiny season continues in January, and Niantic’s starting the year with some new(ish) pokemon it’s teasing. Some are genuinely new, like Fidough, but I’m guessing mystery Dynamax ‘mon will just be, well, pokemon we have but in Dynamax flavor. Take that however you wish.

So for today’s Massively on the Go we’re going to go over what we know right now, but for fun we’ll also speculate on what’s on the horizon as 2025 begins.

Raid-wise, we don’t have anything new or super meta-relevant for raiders. Yes, you can farm normal Dialga and Palkia for candy for their Origine forms or use them as admittedly lesser version of their other forms for PvP, and the same basically goes for Deoxys’ Attack (basically useless) and Defense (a PvP staple), yeah. Save your raid passes for the future, unless you’re desperate for candy or even Registeel (which you’ll probably want to Purify its weekend Shadow form, but it’s a lot of work for something you then have to gamble for proper PvP stats).

For Dynamax ‘mon that we know of, Beldum from January 20th-27th is the one to watch for, but the Starters are also mostly worth it, as Charmander’s line is quite flexible and the others have good bulk.

The mystery ‘mon for Max Monday was originally teased with three pokemon, the last coming in February. If it’s specifically a set of three, it could be the Galarian starters, as Niantic seems to be releasing ‘mon that have a Gigantamax form as Dynamax forms, especially as they’ve been skipped for the Paldean starters for Community Day moves. Similarly, it could be Pikachu, Meowth, and Eevee, which oddly all have Gigantamax forms despite being unevolved ‘mon. There are no other events directly overlapping with these dates, so this is the best I can think of. As always, check back later when we may get further hints or revelations.

For events, we start out the month with Fidough Fetch, oddly starting at 3 p.m. on January 3rd to January 7th at 10 p.m. While Fidough doesn’t immediately release then (for all time zones at least), it’s low on the unlock ladder, as you can see above. For normal raiding, leave the pup at home, but it may see some other uses. In Scarlet and Violet, it was often useful in Tera Raids. We may not be getting Tera Raids, but if we do get them (or Niantic puts it in the Dynamax pool, which I kind of doubt), you may want it for that. It is predicted to make a splash in Great League and possibly as a spice pick in Ultra League, as per JRE. We’ll update this as we learn more.

During that, on January 5th is Sprigatito Community Day. Yes, we’re apparently skipping the Gen 8 Dynamax-able ‘mon, and worse, poor Sprig’s line doesn’t become relevant in at least raids with this CD, even though it’s also getting Flower Trick. It’ll be nice to have the shiny, I guess, and there is 3x stardust, but… yeah. The only thing that may make it more exciting to min-maxers is if gets a Dynamax release, but that would be for fast Fast Attacking, not its charged attacks.

Oddly, we have Fashion Week from January 10th-19th. This is odd because, historically, we’re lucky if Fashion Week is even seven days (Niantic really needs to learn what constitutes a day or week in general), and they’re yearly, and they’re in fall. 2024 didn’t get a Fashion Week at all, whereas 2025’s getting it at the start. Nitpicking out of the way, we usually see Avatar fashion items on sale and new costume ‘mon, sometimes even ones that can evolve, plus there’s going to be a Rocket Takeover attached to it (expect new Shadow ‘mon, possibly looking fabulous, and TMing away Frustration), so I have high expectations for this event. As usual, though, stay tuned for updates.

On January 11th from 2 p.m.-5 p.m., we finally have Mega Gallade Raid Day, a Mega we’ve been expecting for a while now. No, it’s not a great pokemon in general, as we discussed in our article on the best Megas to invest in, but it’s a side-grade and it may be a pokemon you can walk for Mega Energy for two different Megas. The only other pokemon kind of like this at the moment is Mega Charizard, but that’s one Pokemon with two Megas, while the Raltz line has two different final evolutions that get their own Megas. Anyway, maybe we’ll finally see hat Kirlia able to evolve!

January 21st-26th will be Steeled Resolve, a new event that clearly will involve Steel Pokemon, and Rookidee’s line in particular is expected to be introduced due to its central feature on the current loading screen.

On the 25th we’ll see a Community Day Classic. One would assume this too would be a Steel type, possibly Piplup (final form is Water/Steel), (Alola) Sandshrew (because the Alola form is part Steel), but not Beldum as it was featured for a CDC this past August. Of course, Niantic could also do Raltz (since we’re getting Mega Gallade this month) or throw us another curveball, so check back here for updates.

Finally, from January 29th to February 2nd we have Lunar New Year. Traditionally this event is all about lucky friendship/trades, so you may want to hold onto anything you want to get lucky in 2025. Oh, yeah, and zodiac-animal-themed ‘mon spawn too. This will be the year of the snake, so expect snakey pokemon, maybe even another Rayquaza event, as it’s a pretty snakey dragon people love. That’s a speculation though, so once again, check back later for more details.

As usual, we’ll wrap this up with the Spotlight hours. Double stardust is a nice start to the year, though Voltorb’s line isn’t terribly useful (even if the shines are). Roselia’s better than the double catch xp on January 14th, as it’s still fairly useful as a Grass-type and it’s actually more useful without it’s Community Day Fast Move (Bullet Seed > Magical Leaf). Paldean Wooper on January 21st after the December round-up event seems like a slap in the fast, and double catch candy only reinforces that, though if Rookidee or other new pokemon come out and can be caught via research quests, this could be a good event to get more candy for ’em. Finally, January 28th with Yungoos is trash day, both because this pokemon’s not useful and because it’s double transfer day.

That’s probably all for now, readers, but check back for updates as full details come out at their usual glacial pace. Stay safe out there, trainers!

Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
Pokemon Go studio Niantic is considered a controversial gaming company owing to multiple scandals and deceptions, starting with the Wi-Spy privacy scandal; over the years, it’s repeatedly failed to secure player data, endangered players during the pandemic, and refused to address documented stalking in POGO. It also rolled back popular accessibility features to incentivize data collection, faked data, and lied about event results. Following 2021’s community-driven Pokemon No boycott, Niantic vowed transparency and communication; it has not delivered.
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